Thanks to the silly regulations prohibiting liquid on planes, we now have to be creative about bringing back wine when we travel. I found the Wine Skin today via an article on Hi-Tech Travel Gadgets in TIme Magazine online. It’s the simplest little gadget. From what I can tell, someone smarter than me took bubble wrap, shaped it like a wine bottle and added a seal.

When you shove your bottles into your suitcase, your clothes are now protected from the wine if it should break. There have been countless times when I have wrapped wine in plastic bags and then in my clothes to protect it. But I’m always a little paranoid – what if it breaks en route and ruins my one designer suit. Or worse, what if it breaks when the TSA is rifling through my bag. They’ve opened my bottles before and left them open. Who is to say they won’t be rough with that bottle of wine I had to have?

Back in 2005, Kevin & I went to Sonoma and brought back over a case of wine – in our carry-ons and in our checked luggage. If I’m bringing back that much now, I’ll ship it. But if I’ve just got one or two bottles, the Wine Skin looks like a perfect solution.

This is great. When I flew home from San Francisco, I packed a bottle of 2005 Zinfandel from Frog’s Leap by nestling it inside a cowboy boot, padded the boot with socks, and crammed the end of the boot into its pair. I was nervous the entire flight, but the bottle made it unscathed!